Lobbyist accused of hitting columnist weighs plea deal

Robert Scott Gaddy, a lobbyist with longstanding ties to Rochester leaders, is facing a charge of second-degree harassment, a violation, after he was accused of striking a 71-year-old columnist and political activist in an Albany hotel.
Jon Campbell / Albany Bureau

ALBANY - A lobbyist accused of striking a 71-year-old Rochester woman in the jaw is considering the offer of a plea deal to resolve the case.

Robert Scott Gaddy, who has held lobbying contracts with the Rochester school and transit systems, has an offer from the Albany County District Attorney's Office to satisfy the harassment charge he's facing, though the terms of the potential deal haven't been made public.

The offer was discussed in Albany City Court on Friday, when a judge was supposed to set a date for a trial.

Instead, Judge Gary Stiglmeier gave Gaddy another 13 days to consider the offer. Gaddy, who was not present in court Friday, is now due back on July 20.

"Mr. Gaddy has not indicated at this point that he will accept it," Brett Williams, one of Gaddy's attorneys, told Stiglmeier of the prosecutors' offer.

Winston Al-Sarag, 71, accused Gaddy of striking her on the left side of her jaw with a closed fist and threatening to kill her during a Feb. 18 altercation in an Albany hotel suite belonging to Assemblyman David Gantt, D-Rochester.

She said Gaddy was angered by a January column she wrote for The Minority Reporter, a weekly Rochester-based newspaper. The column suggested that Gaddy may face legal trouble for his ties to Assemblyman William Nojay, who killed himself in September the day he was scheduled to surrender on federal charges. While Gaddy had some professional encounters with Nojay, so far there have been no public indications of any wrongdoing in that association.

Gaddy is facing a single count of second-degree harassment, a non-criminal violation charge that can be levied when someone is accused of making physical contact but causes no injuries.

If convicted, Gaddy would face a fine of up to $250 and a maximum of 15 days in jail.

His attorney declined comment outside the courtroom Friday.

An Albany resident, Gaddy has longstanding ties to Rochester leaders, including Gantt, who once employed Gaddy as his legislative counsel.

Gaddy was a major supporter of Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren's successful 2013 campaign, though the two have since had an apparent falling out. This year, Gaddy has supported mayoral candidate Rachel Barnhart, who issued a statement distancing herself from him following Winston Al-Sarag's complaint.

The Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority pays Gaddy's firm $96,000 a year to lobby lawmakers. He has contracted with the RGRTA for at least the past decade.

In recent years, Gaddy also held a lobbying contract with the Rochester City School District that paid him $48,000 a year. That contract was set to expire June 30.

"At this point, the Rochester City School District has no plans on renewing Mr. Gaddy’s contract," Carlos Garcia, a spokesman for the district, said in an email Friday.

Gaddy, meanwhile, claims he terminated the lobbying contract with the school system for "non-payment." He accused the district of failing to file required documents with the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, a state ethics board that oversees lobbying.

"They received notice of termination within the last two weeks," Gaddy wrote in a private message Friday on Twitter.

Garcia could not immediately be reached for comment on Gaddy's claim.

Gaddy, meanwhile, is also legally required to file lobbying disclosure forms to the state ethics board. The filings show who his clients are and how much he is being paid to lobby on their behalf.

His filings for 2017, however, are out of date on the state ethics board's website.

On Friday, Gaddy provided a series of documents he says he submitted to JCOPE in May, laying out his contracts with the Rochester school system and the RGRTA and his compensation for the early part of the year. The two Rochester-based entities have been his only state-level lobbying clients this year, he said.

He also provided a FedEx tracking receipt showing the state board had received a package from him in May.

Asked previously about Gaddy's filings, a spokesman for the state board said it doesn't comment on individual cases.

Gaddy said he will seek an exemption from late fees for the filings because of a medical issue he declined to elaborate on.